


Old White Robes

by summerhall



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin
Genre: Gen, Spoilers for A Dance with Dragons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 14:34:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 337
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239088
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/summerhall/pseuds/summerhall
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She becomes a septa because it’s the last thing anyone would ever expect of her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Old White Robes

She becomes a septa because it's the last thing anyone would ever expect of her.

Not that anyone would expect anything of her anyway. After all, she's dead now. She who knew too much and felt too much and had too little dove from the tower to the rocks below, never to be seen again.

She is seen in Braavos by an old friend of a friend. His hair was still red then, as red as the color she'd dyed her's. Her family had always looked too much like the dragons. And it wasn't safe to be a Targaryen anymore.

A Targaryen like the bundle in Jon's arms. 

 _-His name's Jon. She'd told me Jon, just before... She made me promise. I made a promise.-_

He doesn't laugh at her septa's robes. Neither of them have the stomach for laughter. He doesn't invite her to join him either, she just does. It's not like she has anywhere else to go. Just away.

 _-This is the right thing to do, she tells herself, clutching the long white sword as the coast of Dorne passes further and further away. I know too much. He told me too much. The boy- They could use me against him. Those murderers, those monsters, they'll kill him if they know. I have to leave. I have to die.-_

She stays with Griff because he's familiar in this strange world. She stays with the boy because she loved his mother, and, for one stolen moment where she could pretend that this broken man and his soon-to-be bastard son were hers, she loved his brother too. She becomes Lemore because she can't be who she really is. She becomes Lemore because Lemore is nothing like who she really is. Her piety and isolation become her, and it is almost enough.

But her septa's white robes grow old and dirty, discoloring to a pale, familiar gray, and sometimes, only sometimes, when she looks in the mirror, she's Ashara Stark, just as she always wanted to be.


End file.
